I talked with Micah about playing a bad guy in a film that marks the biggest break in his career (so far). While he’s great at portraying the bad guy, he sure sounded like he’s a good guy in his real life.

Micah Hauptman in Parker | FilmDistrict

Tell me a bit about the movie.

Lee Marvin did a movie called “Point Blank,” and Mel Gibson did one as well [“Payback“] that was based on the same character, Parker. So, this version of it is essentially a revenge film that starts off in the beginning with a heist, and Jason Statham and the gang of us do this heist together. The gang turns on Parker, and he hunts each of them down one by one.

And you get to play a pretty bad guy, it sounds like.

Yeah, the movie’s full of bad guys. Jason’s the “good-bad” guy. And the rest of us are the “bad-bad” guys basically.

Different levels of bad.

[Laughter] Most definitely.

Tell me about your character.

My character, Hardwicke, I’m kind of a spoiled rich kid. I assemble the whole team of criminals to come together…. My reason for doing that is that I come from a criminal family, and I’ve never risen up in the ranks. And this is sort of my chance to eventually be the rightful heir of the throne. If I can pull off the heist, then my uncle, who runs the family now, will ultimately allow me to take over the family.

Do you prepare for a role like this? What do you do?

Most of the work I did with Taylor was back story…. Most of what we ended up doing was myself and Michael [Chiklis] and Clifton [Collins, Jr.] and Wendell [Pierce] spent a lot of time together that first week getting to know each other. This is my first really big film and this big of a role, and the three of them were just really incredible to me and really looked out for me and took care of me in ways that I could probably never repay them…. I think the plan, without telling us, was to put us all in the situation where we had nothing to do in New Orleans but hang out with each other and get to know each other.

Was it nerve-wracking to go into a big movie like this?

It’s daunting, especially when you’ve only done really, really small movies…. I’m the only person in the movie who isn’t a celebrity, but Taylor fought for me to be in the movie. It’s a role that probably would have or should have been offered to some sort of name actor. So, I arrived on the set knowing that Taylor – no matter what – was behind me and really supported me and for whatever reason thought that I was so right for this that he convinced the studio to not cast a star.

How many times did you have to audition?

Only twice.

How much screen time do you have?

I just saw a version of the movie. I essentially start the movie and end the movie. Actual screen time, I probably have 30 minutes.

Jennifer Lopez in Parker | FilmDistrict

That’s quite a lot! What else are you working on these days?

I have a couple of things I’m producing with my fiance and actually our manager, and Mark Ruffalo is executive producing. John Carroll Lynch is in it, and I’m in it as well. That’s called “Anything,” and I think we’re going to shoot after pilot season, probably June or July in 2013…. And another film that I actually wrote called “D is for Detroit ” that has been around for a little bit that I’m in and I’m going to direct…. It’s a pretty socially and politically driven script that’s sort of disguised as a character drama about two best friends who grew up in Detroit together.

That all sounds great. Is there anything else you’d like to say “on the record”?

I feel so fortunate, and I’m so grateful to be working. It’s been a really amazing couple of years for me.

Melanie Votaw is a New York City-based freelance writer who has written and published 25 non-fiction books, as well as fiction and poetry. She’s a former actress/singer/dancer who started performing at age 4 and now loves to write about film, TV, and theater. Visit her Web site, Rule the Word, her travel blog, Trip Out on Travel, and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.